Mumbai: Venture capital (VC) firm Inventus Capital is in the process of making a first close of Rs175 crore for its third fund by early next month, a senior executive of the VC firm said. Inventus is targeting a total corpus of Rs325 crore for the fund.

The third Inventus fund is the VC firm’s first India-dedicated fund that will be managed by an ’ India team including Parag Dhol, Rutvik Doshi and Samir Kumar.

“We are in the process of raising our fund three and simultaneously trying to get our first deal done by next month. Unlike in our fund one and two, where we did investments in US as well as in India, now we will have two separate paths. We are targeting an India-dedicated fund of Rs325 crore which is roughly $50 million. Our nerve center will exclusively be on Indian startups," said Parag Dhol, managing director, Inventus Capital Partners.

Dhol added that the firm believes that the chances of success are higher in raising a smaller fund and making right bets.

Inventus was founded in 2007 by Kanwal Rekhi, Samir Kumar and John Dougery. It has offices in Bengaluru and California and has so far raised two funds totaling $158 million.

Its investment successes include bus ticketing platform RedBus and Insta Health, which were acquired by Naspers and Practo, respectively. Sierra Atlantic, which was acquired by Hitachi Consulting, is another big exit by Inventus.

For the current fund raising, the firm has already received commitments from international investors which include family offices and high net-worth individuals along with domestic ones.

“Most of the Indian money in our fund has come from banks. SIDBI has committed 25% of the money in the fund. Some potential investors such as Portea promoter Ganesh Krishnan, the three founders of Bigbasket, one of the founders of bookmyshow, Makemytrip founder Deep Kalra, along with few family offices and HNIs have already committed to us," Dhol said.

The VC firm aims to stick to its core thesis of investing in series A companies, investing in approximately 12-15 companies.

“We will stick to our previous strategy of investing in series A rounds. We will focus on investing in technology, internet of things, broadly internet, mobile, SAAS based companies. We would invest somewhere around Rs5-15 crore on an average, and Rs30 crore for multiple rounds," Dhol added.

Last year in June, Mint had reported that Inventus Capital was planning to separate its India and US units and raise an independent fund for investing in Indian start-ups.

In March, 2018, Fireside Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund focused on consumer brands, closed its first fund with a corpus of Rs340 crore.

Last year in July, another VC fund SAIF Partners raised a $350 million fund focusing on both public as well as private technology and brick-and-mortar companies.